Why Don't More People Love Audio?

Most people are able to love and appreciate music without obsessive concerns about sonic quality. It's not because they are ignorant or uncaring. It's well known that any number of professional musicians (classical & pop) do not have audiophile type systems, yet I don't think that anyone can seriously question their commitment to music. Audiophiles are a small minority who by definition obsess about sound quality. Most other people are able to simply enjoy the music. BTW, I'm both a music lover and an audiophile.

That's the best explanation I've ever read for why opera accounts for less than 1% of music sales.

Mapman, I agree. Your flavor comment is what I meant by personalizing.

I was picking nits. I just thought his examples were really bad. Put five luxury cars in a lineup and unless you're a valet at a boutique hotel you won't be able to start them three of them without being shown how. Setting the heat control on the vibrating rear head rest also is as intuitive as it could be in some models.

Enjoy!

Better systems do come in a plug in and play formats. Single brand systems from Decware, Krell, Quad, Meridian, McIntosh, MBL and others are readily available. Or you could even let dealer select and setup a system for you. It's not that difficult to get high quality sound. I think many people on Audiogon make it complicated. They don't want to pay too much money and they want it personalized. It's more fun that way.

To be totally argumentative, Ikea is RTA which is at the other end of the sofa from plug in and play. Also modern luxury cars require fairly detailed instruction before you can safely operate them and you cannot maintain them without dealer assistance.

They also don't see the reason to buy 7 monobloc amplifiers for $7,000 when an Onkyo receiver has 7 channels in a small box.

When you say it like that, what is the reason?

The "average Joe" walks into a Guitar Center and buys an American Fender Strat for around $1,200. The audiophile spin on this would be to tell the guy that his Strat is just okay and that he really should buy a hand made instrument from some luthier in Oregon for $20,000 and upwards (14 months wait list). You explain that it's a much better guitar and will sound better. Joe Average walks away laughing and he's laughing at you.